I don't recall if there were news stories or photo's from those races. We attended most, if not all of them. They definitely were exciting! The course was up over the loose shale hills to the right of the grandstand when facing the chutes at the rodeo grounds, across some draws, up, down and around some of the other hills, back into the arena where they had a water pit, and I don't recall if they went around the race track (around the outside of the arena) before or after the hills and water, or if they didn't even use the track.

It was very dangerous. Many riders were injured, some quite severely, I believe. I'm a nervous spectator anytime injuries can be life threatening, so probably missed some stuff when my eyes were closed!!!

I suspect it was liability and animal cruelty accusations which ended those races. I do believe the animals were treated well by MOST of the riders, but if they were not well conditioned, or were not trained well, or too young, they could have been hurt by an inexperienced rider, too.

There were some other courses, one being in the Badlands, south of Kadoka along hiway #63. I never saw any of the races there.

The story by Mel Anderson is great! We went to several horse sales at Dean Reeves ranch, and bought some. A favorite being a nice blue roan who sadly got moon blindness and injured his foot badly when he didn't see a culvert and stepped off the edge of it and got a bad cut.

We have also enjoyed following Tom Reeves' riding career, getting a good photo or several of him at Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeos.

MRJ Do you have any idea of the newspapers who might have covered this race?
Does Fort Pierre have a newspaper that was operating then? Thank you for the great reporting.
I have always been intrigued with this race and years ago wanted to run in it. We just didn't have the resources or time at that time. Jesse Bail is our neighbor and Tom Reeves was quite good to him, I think. Salt of the earth type of people.